Classics Club Challenge/My Ultimate Reading List

While looking for a way to get back in to regular blogging and an excuse to compile a list of everything I want to read, I stumbled across The Classics Club. Their challenge: pick at least 50 classics (25 years old or older) you want to read and set a goal for 5 years from now. You can pick more than 50 and a date sooner than that, but at minimum 50 books and at most 5 years to do it.

Yeah, my list ended up being 300 books long.

But not all of them are actually old enough to be “classics.” Out of 300 titles, 69 are from less than 25 years ago, and are so officially disqualified from my Classics Club Challenge. However, they are still a part of my to-read list, and as the years pass, the older of them will be absorbed into the official list as soon as they DO qualify. (I will also intersperse my classics reading with these newer, “easier” books — like Infinite Jest. I’M JUST THAT CRAZY.) Below you’ll find my classics list first, followed by the new stuff. I’ll be marking this up as I go along, green text for books I’m currently reading, blue text for books I’ve finished. I’ll also be linking reviews for every book I read, here and, for the older list, over at Classics Club.

Nearly a third of this list (86 to be exact) is by women. I am proud that there’s that many, and yet guilty that there isn’t more. It’s still a list heavy on the old dead white men, but I have my reasons for including every single one of these titles — Mostly the fact that I’ve never read most of them and that’s almost embarrassing.

There’s a couple of re-reads, but only a couple. The Secret Garden is there because my childhood copy is in tatters, but I haven’t tried to read it again in more than a decade. (Unlike my copy of Anne of Green Gables — also in tatters, but still gets a look-over every couple of years.) And the list includes as much variety as I could cram in; there’s not only literary novels but also short story collections, poetry collections, plays, nonfiction, biography, essay collections, and a few genre titles and children’s lit thrown in there just for fun.

I WANT TO READ ALL THE BOOKS.

So my start date: May 14, 2014. My end date: May 13, 2019. Let’s see how far I can get!!

I’m beginning in the easy end of things, with A Visit from the Goon Squad. On deck: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.